The US government’s pursuit of secrecy and power lends itself to unilateralism which the Founding Fathers feared, Chelsea Manning has said. The whistleblower spoke out after being awarded the Sam Adams prize for Integrity in Intelligence.

In a written statement posted on the Pvt. Manning Support Network,
Chelsea Manning said the US is moving towards what the American
constitution was written to prevent. Following the attacks on the
Pentagon and the World Trade Center, “the American government
has been pursuing an unprecedented amount of secrecy and power
consolidation in the Executive branch, under the President and
the Cabinet,” Manning wrote.

Referencing a recent Freedom of Information case, when the US
government declined to release documents on targeted killings
that it deemed harmful to national security, Manning called the
White House’s approach “seemingly Orwellian.”

In the case, the New York Times and the American Civil Liberties
Union argued that the practice of targeted killing of US citizens
was a matter of public interest, and information pertaining to it
should be available.

However, the court concluded the American government had “not
violated the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) by refusing to
turn over the documents sought in the FOIA requests, and [could
not] be compelled . . . to explain in detail the reasons why [the
Government's] actions do not violate the Constitution and laws of
the United States.”

According to Manning, such cases represent a critical problem in
US society and raise the issue of the “level of secrecy,
obfuscation, and classification or protective marking.” He
argues that although the American government claims it is trying
to protect the citizens of their nation, it is breeding “a
unilateralism that the founders feared, and deliberately tried to
prevent when drafting the American Constitution.”

“When the public lacks the ability to access what its
government is doing, it ceases to be involved in the governing
process,” said Manning, highlighting there is a line to be
drawn between tyranny and freedom.

Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley Manning) was sentenced in
August 2013 to 35 years in prison for 20 charges including
espionage, theft and violating computer regulations. The charges
relate to the 700,000-odd Iraq and Afghanistan battle reports he
released to whistleblowing website, WikiLeaks, in 2010 while he
was working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq.

The Sam Adams Prize was awarded to Manning “for casting
much-needed daylight on the true toll and cause of civilian
casualties in Iraq; human rights abuses by US and ‘coalition’
forces, mercenaries, and contractors; and the roles that spying
and bribery play in international diplomacy.”

The award ceremony was held last month and Manning was awarded
the prize in absentia, as he is currently incarcerated at
Leavenworth Prison.